dissidiacalamitasinfinitafandomcom-20200215-history
Story:The End of Eternity/E6
VI We Who Have Cast Ourselves Aside Become... ‘I am going to die with this woman.’ That was the first thing Arend thought of as he slowly opened his eyes from his heavy slumber. After the momentous events of the previous night, he had decided to skip school and sleep in, and of course Klaytaza was with him as he did so. The two had slept in the same bed, on the same pillow, and beneath the same blankets. Now, as Arend regained consciousness, he and Klaytaza shared eye contact. She was wide awake; distantly, Arend wondered if she had slept at all. Just as he had noticed previously, her chest and shoulders did not move with any breathing motions at all. He could not tell if the air was still as cold as it had been that night, or if it was even still night, but Arend felt warm and comfortable. He was never comfortable in another’s presence; not like this. “Welcome back, Master,” Klaytaza said after a long moment of staring into Arend’s eyes. She must have known that he was too awed to speak. “You have slept for quite a long time. Night approaches in just a few hours.” “I see…” Arend suppressed a yawn and blinked. His small-sized room was quiet and peaceful here beside Klaytaza; for just a moment, all of his world was within these four walls. No more apocalypse, no more thousand Keys to Eternity, just this one. It was enough; it even felt abundant. “Are we safe here?” “Yes, Master. I sense no other Keys moving towards our location. For now, we are in no danger.” “Good.” He held his tongue and did not mention any reluctance he had in fighting; Klaytaza’s reaction to that implication the previous night was indicator enough of how well she would take to hearing that. And she was right in looking down on him for being soft, Arend knew; if they really wanted to end the world, they would have to kill everyone. There were no innocents. He had decided that a long time ago. Not even Arend himself was free of sin – if anything else, he was perhaps the worst sinner of all, simply because of this goal of his. As he was thinking of the end of the world, the peace within his room ended as well. Arend jumped and sat up in the bed as his door abruptly opened. Klaytaza was not affected by his room opening to the world, and she barely turned her eyes to the door. Avdotya Vitalis stood with her hands on her hips and her drab gray school uniform over her body. Arend’s sister was only two years younger than him, and the two looked very much alike. He was taller than her of course, but both Vitalis siblings sported mid-length flaxen hair and lean physiques. Where Arend had slim, inquisitive gray eyes, Avdotya looked at the world with wide eyes of a long-lost sea green. Her face was angular and her expression perpetually cold, as if she were coated in an insectile and malignant exterior that masked any beauty dangling from her features. This girl looked down at the two of them, her pretty eyes sparkling and wide without comprehension. She stood bewildered and still before taking a long swallow and looking up to Arend with knitted eyebrows. “Brother… Since when did you…?” “I don’t,” Arend said sharply as he stood up from his bed. Walking over to the drab black wardrobe in his small room, he started to dress himself. “She is just…” He trailed off for a second and bit his lip. “I wasn’t doing anything. Don’t worry. We were just sleeping.” “You skipped school to just sleep?” Avdotya crossed her arms. Her eyes trailed her brother’s path across the room. “I don’t understand you at all.” “You never have,” Arend said softly. He dressed with efficient, calculated movements. His sister took this lull in the conversation as an opportunity to dissect Arend’s guest. Klaytaza had left the comfort of the minimalistic blanket and sprawled out on top of it on her side, with one leg bent and the other extended across the length of the bed. When he noticed Avdotya’s inquisitive gaze, Arend remembered just how outrageous and unorthodox his Key looked, and he started to search for a way to explain it away as he glanced back at her with alarm. But even more alarming was the fact that Klaytaza had somehow changed clothes instantly. Her all black bodysuit was gone, replaced with a simple black skirt and blouse, and over her shoulders she wore one of Arend’s uniform jackets. In addition, her extremely long hair was pulled up in a large, messy bun. As he turned back to finish dressing, unable to suppress a quiet sigh of relief, Arend wondered how and when she had changed clothes. She had made it a point to say that there were no enemies around – had she used an instance of time compression just for this moment? The idea of her doing so was almost humorous, until he realized that it was done without his consent… and that he had not even noticed it happening. “Not only did you disappoint me by actually being at home for once,” Avdotya said with a clenched jaw and tightly crossed arms, “you went a step further into depravity by bringing a girl home and dressing her in your clothes. I wonder how Father will react to this, or if Mother will think your whore has good manners?” His sister smiled and looked back over to Klaytaza. “You have a strong talent for ruining dreams and expectations, but nothing else, it seems. And you, woman – what is your name? Do you have a habit of seducing your way into perfectly normal, efficient households?” “I am Klaytaza,” the Key said as she gracefully craned her neck backwards. Silky strands of pure pearl hair tickled the back of her neck, but she likely did not feel it at all. “Your brother and I are close only through our souls. You have nothing to worry about.” “Oh yeah? I was wondering what you find so attractive in him, but now I’m glad to see I was wrong.” Avdotya shrugged. “You look – old. Older than Arend. Do you go to his school?” “No,” Klaytaza answered, “but I am not that old.” “You look younger than my parents. My big brother isn’t that depraved, at least.” As usual, Arend ignored most of his sister’s insults, and he gave Klaytaza a pointed look in order to silently command her to do the same, but it was too little and too late. After she had finished her tirade, he exhaled and tightened his belt. “What exactly is it that you want, Avdotya? If you wished I wasn’t home, it wasn’t very smart of you to come into my room.” Now that she had been addressed, Avdotya’s mocking expression softened, and she let her high shoulders descend for just an inch. “Is it too much to ask to see my brother for once in a while? You’re always walking around outside, doing nothing. Do you hate being home that much?” Now fully dressed, Arend walked back to his bed and sat on it, his back right next to Klaytaza’s bent leg. “I thought you wished for me not to be here.” “And I thought you were getting better at going to school – yet here you are, sleeping in an entire day with some random woman. Doesn’t she have a job she should be at? Don’t tell me you brought home some inefficient concubine!” “I don’t see why it’s of any use to you wondering how she or I spend our time.” “You’re always like this!” Avdotya suddenly exclaimed as she turned, her limbs briefly splaying into the air in a heated frenzy, and she began to pace across the small room. “You don’t understand anything. I don’t understand you. All I want – if you, just for a second, listened – just listened!” Her words had devolved into passionate rambles, and she began to ejaculate curses and mutters that only populated the room with unintelligible sounds. “I listen to you and everything else, more than you can imagine. The petty squabbles of which you speak mean nothing to me and only serve to waste my time.” Arend sighed and reclined on his bed. His back and head rested on Klaytaza’s raised leg. His Key stared after Avdotya, who stopped pacing seconds after Arend spoke, her face suddenly ablaze with a revelation. “Don’t brush me off, you ass! If you aren’t going to ever speak to me, then I don’t want you around at all! That’s not so difficult to understand, is it? You’ve always been like this, and soon you’re leaving the house for your own place. You’ll be an adult, but you’re still so immature! Ugh! You know, sometimes I wonder if all this is because of me. Do you stay out of the house because of me? You don’t even like me at all, do you?” Klaytaza spoke for him. “Your brother cares for you very much,” she said rather dryly. None of the Vitalis siblings could tell if she was telling the truth or if she was simply speaking to placate Avdotya. “What would you know? Do you even have a sibling? How long have you even known Arend?” “I have countless siblings, and they are all… angels, of sorts.” “That must be nice, having nice, supportive siblings. You know, I’ve never heard of that happening anywhere, really…” Despite herself, Avdotya paused and crossed her arms in thought. “You’re not from here, are you? I can’t think of anywhere that doesn’t implement the two children per family rule… Are your parents a bunch of renegades or something? How do their meal rations cover more than two children?” “My father is resourceful and quite caring. I resent him.” Arend sat up with a sigh, looking back to Klaytaza to show that he was not amused with her toying with his sister. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” he sighed as he turned back to the other woman in the room. “Please, Avdotya, leave us. I don’t have time to discuss your fledgling moods.” He looked up to his sister with a sad, piteous look; she was a storm to him, raging and tempestuous, and – most of all – illogical. Now, more than ever, he was reminded of the night he lost her to the world. Just as he predicted, his sister started to tremble with rage. “All you ever do is talk down to me, brother. What makes you so superior? Why do you have to torture me like this?” “…Your purpose here is lost to me.” “Aren’t they all,” she replied, “to one such as you, oh ascendant?” Avdotya laughed without any humor and looked down at her brother. The two of them met the other’s gaze, their eyes staring and groping into the paintings of abstract feeling that each of them held within their hearts, but surfacing with still clouded eyes ignorant to any insight on the other. “I awake, sometimes, and I am thankful for my life. You speak of the world around us as if it is ending, and if nothing would make you happier than to watch every other human die, and that terrifies me, brother.” She shook with a chill, but she wasn’t particularly cold, even in the uninsulated house they were in. “You really do think of yourself as above everyone else – but why? You’re just the same as us all. Everyone ends up dead on the streets and deposited into the earth. Nothing ever changes. Nothing.” Arend chuckled humorlessly. “If only you knew what you speak of. How much I tire of living, of being as I am, and not as an ocean or a star. The sins of my existence weigh heavily on my soul, but a weightless one like yourself is condemned to only ignorance without its bliss.” He sighed. “I don’t think of myself as above… Not really. If anything, it’s the opposite…” “Living should be a joy, something you love, Arend! I wake every morning, before I am able to think of you and mother and father, and I am excited. I long to see what the day will bring for me, what sceneries I shall see, what people I will meet. Do you not love these mysteries? Would you feel anything at all if you ever managed to solve them?” “What sceneries are there to see, outside of cold gray skyscrapers, misty gray skies, and dirty gray earth? The misunderstanding is thus, for you ask of my capacity for mystery and my agenda in seeking the horizons, but you mistake me and my demeanor. You see, Avdotya, I cannot love what is sinful. The sunrise, those around me, the history of our world, even myself – all of them are absent in joy, absent of life, and absent of purpose… as is all of creation.” He smiled as Klaytaza pulled up both legs behind him and snaked a hand around his neck. “You know I can’t love.” “Don’t say that!” Avdotya rushed to his person, shaking him with her hands grasping his shoulders, and her eyes began to redden. She squinted them after a rub and continued to swim in his consciousness. “I don’t ever want to hear you say such a thing again. Please, you must promise me this!” She shook him again, and looked up at him with hurt, pleading eyes, but still his lips remained tightly pursed. ‘I killed a man last night,’ Arend thought as he stared into Avdotya’s suddenly concerned eyes. ‘And I will kill more. More and more, until there is nothing left. Yet she still loves me.’ He said none of this. “Why do you prostrate yourself in the face of truth? How could what I say wound you so when you have not been insulted? What use do I even have in insulting you?” Avdotya had nothing to respond with. She sniffled and looked down with a grimace, as if seeing herself reflected and wishing to wash her hands of the emotion. She swayed, her body tensed, and her fingers loosened, but then it all tightened once again with shakily renewed confidence. The storm had passed, as had her tough and ruthless façade; in its place, she raged no longer, and only suffered. “Please,” she pleaded. “I don’t want you to be this way. I really don’t, brother. I hate it, and it makes me think I hate you, but I don’t, I swear I don’t…” Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away with fervent energy. “Just… Take back what you said. About not being able to love. That would be terrible, so horrible – I couldn’t imagine it, I don’t want to imagine it! And for you to have to experience such a state, it pains me so… it angers me! You anger me!” She looked at her brother, face awash with inconsistent and stuttering emotion swirling about her in a whirlpool. In contrast to this, as always, Arend’s face was still as stone, did not show turmoil, and did not change. He stood unmoving, the watcher to the timepiece of eternity, self-proclaimed and appointed heir to the throne of antiquity. Two women held onto him at that moment, and he knew only one fit to sit with him on the pedestal of evolution. “Well?!” Avdotya stood now, letting go and throwing her arms behind her in frustration. “Don’t you have anything to say to me? I’ve laid myself bare for you to see and to empathize – and your mind fails you?” Her body contorted in agitation, her emotions clearly clouded with irritation and impatience, but her face was still the tempestuous canvas for all the palettes of her mind. Still Arend was silent. “You’re impossible!” She screamed in frustration, hands writhing at her chest, and she darkly moved to leave the room. With one foot outside the dwelling, she turned and looked right at Arend. He had been following her with his eyes, and their regards met once again. Avdotya’s glare faltered, softened once more, before hardening on a neutral face of trepidation. “I beg of you, one last time, brother – answer me true, if you hold any spark of feeling in that black heart of yours – it is all I have left in my life to cherish. I don’t care about this world, or anything else out there, or even another woman. Just tell me, please… Do you love me?” He remembered the last time Avdotya asked him a question that changed his life – and he struggled. Arend’s mind raced and grappled for the answer she wanted to hear, and it tore itself apart in a frantic search for the answer that would be the truth. As he glanced up into Avdotya’s eyes once more, he found himself startled by the sheer emotion she held there: the longing and the deep-set pain, all bolded and spread for him to see. His intellect came to a blank, and he reached up to hold Klaytaza’s hand for stability, and before he knew it, his mouth had spoken that which his heart truly felt, even in the absence of permission from that which his brain held captive over the rest of the body. “No,” he said, before gulping and continuing. “I never have and I never could. That is my curse, and I do not repent it.” Avdotya looked at him one last time, her eyes finally overflowing with a last push of emotion and tears, before she blinked them away. The tears fell, and with them her face, as she took on the same slate of emotional neutrality that Arend was so fond of. She looked over him, drinking in all of his features before glancing over Klaytaza who still sat next to him, and left the room silently. Arend let go of Klaytaza’s hand and rose slowly, his breath quicker than usual and his chest paining him. There was an unshakable feeling of regret in him. Then a chill ran through his body again, and he heard the idle tapping of rain on the walls of his clean white room. He had more important things to think about, Arend knew – but as much as he tried to think of the Key from the previous night, or his precious ideals, Arend could not get rid of the memory of his sister’s face in that final moment. He had never seen sorrow quite like that before. Gulping and rubbing his eyes with one hand, he grasped the pen in the other, and remembered the company he was in. Klaytaza also rose, and she slid a hand into Arend’s shaking grip. “I am here, Master. I will always be here.” “I lied,” Arend gasped. “I lied to her.” The Key said nothing. She knew. As if imitating him, she snuck a hand around his waist and pulled him to her thin body. His suit jacket draped over them both like a bedsheet. “This wasn’t what I wanted,” Arend whispered. “I didn’t want to feel this. I hate it, Klaytaza; I hate it. I’m so depraved, so despicable, so full of ruin and mistakes. I’m human, Klaytaza, and I realize it every morning. I hate it. I just want everything to disappear.” He was not fighting for the same reason Klaytaza was, even if he had told her that she was. In the end, he was fighting for Avdotya – or perhaps because of her. “That is all right, Master. Even if all humanity abandons you, I never will, and we will end existence together. You and I are special. I love that about you.” “You lied to me,” Arend finally whispered, after he had kissed Klaytaza and the two returned to his bed. They had both stayed silent beneath the blankets for a long, long time, as a dismal rain played with the window to the room and even as the small storm subsided. Now Arend was almost within the throes of a fitful sleep, and he had almost forgotten, but he spoke. “I did,” Klaytaza agreed. “You are right, just as always.” KEYS TO ETERNITY REMAINING: 997 <- Back | Next ->